


Healing an Angel

by noiproksa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Team Free Will, Wing Grooming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noiproksa/pseuds/noiproksa
Summary: Cas has been captured by shapeshifters who have been torturing him for weeks. The aftermath is not pretty, but Dean will do anything to get his angel through this and get him to trust them again.To make matters worse, the mastermind behind Cas’ capture is still alive. Will they be able to keep him from coming after Cas again?(Intended as gen, but can be read as Destiel pre-slash.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dean & Castiel Mini Bang 2019. This is my first time participating in a bang and I had so much fun with it, even though I was very nervous when I signed up for it.
> 
> Thanks so much to my awesome artist, cross-roads-blues. Every time I look at the art she made for my story, I’m all a-squee.  
> You can find her tumblr [here](https://cross-roads-blues.tumblr.com/) and the rebloggable tumblr link of the art is [here](https://cross-roads-blues.tumblr.com/post/186230758180/i-loved-arting-for-noiproksa-fic-healing-an-angel).

Dean advanced, a feral grin smeared across his face. “Ready to talk yet?” he asked, twirling the angel blade pointedly in his hands.

“You could make this so much easier on yourself,” Sam added from across the room, where he was leaning against the grungy dungeon wall, his arms crossed, as he was watching the proceedings with an off-handed detachment.

Castiel jerked uselessly against the Enochian cuffs that held his hands above his head. His wrists were bruised and bloodied from the countless times he had jerked on them before.

“Please,” he croaked out through chapped lips. There was no heart to his word. The gesture was as empty and meaningless as his struggle against the chains above.

“So pathetic to see an angel beg,” Dean sneered at him.

 _No_ , Castiel shook his head, _not Dean! Not his Dean!_ He had to remember that. The thing that looked like Dean advanced until the blade made contact with Castiel’s bare chest. It pierced his vessel’s skin and his grace rushed to the wound, in a futile attempt to heal it. Castiel hissed in pain, his head lolling against his chest, which put a strain on his arms that were still held in place above his head.

“Gonna bleed you dry, angel-boy,” Dean’s voice whispered in his ear as the blade raised up to make a small cut to Castiel’s throat. The edges of the wound burned as bits of his grace leaked out.

Castiel sagged against his bindings as the meager amounts of strength he had gathered drained from him once more. Dean— _not Dean_ —always did that, every day, to ensure he remained weak. And it worked. Castiel had never felt so weak, never wanted to leave his vessel behind more than he did at that moment.

“You better watch out for when Sam and Dean come,” he mumbled. The first few days, there had been more bite to his threats. Now it was no more than an idle threat, a mantra he wasn’t sure he even believed in anymore himself—but it was all he had left.

“We’re right here, Cas,” Sam said from somewhere off to his right, the nickname dripping with sarcasm, but Castiel’s eyelids were heavy, and it was getting hard to think straight.

***

The brothers stormed into the underground lair, an old army bunker, long since disowned and discarded, guns blazing, and taking no prisoners. Four weeks. It had been four frigging weeks filled with worry and hardly any sleep. They finally had their first lead on where Cas had been taken and they had no intention of returning home without their angel.

Seeing his own face staring back at him, stunned, only made Dean pause for a microsecond before he shot the shifter straight in the head, stepping over his dead body to help Sam catch the second one, which was trying to flee. It was obvious they hadn’t been expecting guests, giving Dean and Sam the upper hand.

The room they were in was empty save for the fresh corpses and some sparse, rotten furniture, but at the far end from where they had entered was a second door made of thick, now heavily rusted, metal. It swung open with a squeal of protest and a blast of stale air that reeked of dried blood, mold and infected wounds. As Dean entered, he almost wished the shapeshifters were still alive just so that he could kill them again—slowly.

Opposite to the door, Cas stood on his toes, his hands in handcuffs bolted to the wall and his head hanging forward, resting against his chest. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be unconscious. He looked beaten to a bloody pulp, cuts crisscrossed haphazardly over his torso, some were shallow, but others were disconcertingly deep, some fresh with red blood still oozing from the wound, while others seemed weeks old, though it was hard to tell through the bruised and infected flesh.

Dean rushed to him in an instant, ignoring Sam’s shout to be cautious and taking the angel’s face in his hands, as gently as he could manage through his terror, and lifting it. “Cas?” he called.

The angel mumbled something unintelligible in Enochian, his eyes fluttering open, but he didn’t seem to be able to track what was going on. He kept looking somewhere over Dean’s shoulder as he tried to shy away from Dean’s touch.

Dean was having none of it. He had to touch Cas all over, making sure that he was alive, even though his touch had to be very soft and careful due to the cuts. Nevertheless, a shiver went through Cas at the contact, and he mumbled, finally in a language Dean understood, “Won’t tell you.”

“Hey, it’s us, okay? We’re gonna get you out of here,” Dean reassured him. Then he looked up at Sam who was fiddling around with the handcuffs, and snapped at him, “What’s taking so long? Get them off, already!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do? They are _bolted_ to the wall.”

Cas’ head was lolling forwards without his support and Dean took it between his hands again. “Hey, none of that. We’re almost out of here. Just give Sam a sec.”

“Dean and Sam will come for me. They will kill you,” Cas murmured, voice trembling ever so slightly as he stared at something a thousand miles away.

“We’re right here, Cas,” Dean soothed, but somehow, his words had the opposite effect and Cas tried to jerk away from him, so Dean added, “The shifters are dead. We’re here to bring you home.”

“Home?” Cas asked, and somehow he sounded panicked.

“Yeah. The bunker?” Dean prompted and that finally seemed to get through to Cas who stopped struggling at last.

“The bunker,” he repeated. And then in a hushed voice he asked, “Not Heaven?”

“Definitely not Heaven,” Dean confirmed, even though he had no idea where that ridiculous thought had come from. Since when would they want to go to Heaven?

Cas hadn’t looked him directly in the eyes since they got here, but now he was snatching quick, darting glances, before looking away again. “Dean?”

“Yeah.” Dean tried to sound reassuring while quickly checking on Sam who didn’t seem to have made any progress with the handcuffs.

“The real Dean, not Not-Dean,” Cas babbled.

Dean swallowed and repeated, “Yeah, the real Dean.”

“They didn’t believe that you would,” the angel told him.

Cas really wasn’t making a lot of sense right now, but Dean still found himself asking, “That I would what?”

“Come for me.—But you did. Right?” A hopeful glance in his direction and the angel’s eyes were flitting away again.

“Of course!” Dean replied, perhaps a bit too harshly, which made Cas recoil as much as he was able to. “Always,” Dean added, his voice suddenly dry.

Cas was still avoiding eye contact when he muttered, “I could not escape my vessel. How do you live like that? You can never escape your vessels.”

“Yeah, well, you get used to it,” Dean told him. Then, more tersely, he added, “Sammy?”

“Almost done,” came the reply.

A moment later there was a click, a “Ha!” from Sam, and Cas sagged against him. While Sam was gathering Cas’ shirt, tie and trench coat, which were lying discarded on a table in a far corner of the room, Dean supported the angel as best he could as a faint blue shimmer took over his body, and he waited for his wounds to heal. Instead, the blue shimmer peeled from his body and drifted away like a fine mist. As it did, Cas slumped lifelessly against him.

Before Dean could really react or even find out what the hell was going on, the glow had disappeared, and all Dean could do was look at Sam helplessly. His brother had started to dress Cas carefully, but was now looking up into the air with an equally stumped expression.

“What was _that_?” Dean finally managed to get out. Cas’ body was getting heavy in his arms and he adjusted his grip. “Did he… did he just friggin’ _leave_?!”

“I don’t…” Sam seemed at a loss, too, furrowing his brows and looking at the lifeless body before he put the tie around Cas’ neck, leaving it untied.

“Cas, get your feathery ass back here!” Dean yelled. When nothing happened, he added, “We will not carry your vessel all the way back to the Impala.” Still nothing. “I’m serious. We’ll leave it here to rot.”

Five minutes later, they were carrying Cas’ vessel all the way back to the Impala.

Watching the Winchesters rescue their angel via security feed from a safe distance, the man leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingers together into a triangle. So far, everything was going according to plan. The shifters were a necessary sacrifice. They’d played their part and were no longer important. Now all he had to do was wait…


	2. Chapter 2

“What do we do?” Dean asked once they had deposited the vessel into Cas’ bed. “I mean… Do we ice the body or what?”

“I don’t think Cas would like coming back to an icicle,” Sam pointed out.

“Better than coming back to a decayed vessel.” Dean frowned and added, “I mean— _does_ his vessel decay if Cas is not in it anymore?”

“Probably. Why wouldn’t it?” Sam said. After a short pause he continued, “Maybe we should…” He gestured to the various wounds.

“Yeah, that’s… yeah.”

Dean abruptly turned to go fetch a bucket of water and some towels. He needed a break from looking at Cas’ beat up, lifeless body anyway, and taking off Cas’ clothes seemed more like a job for Sam.

They tended to Cas’ wounds in silence for the most part, cleaning out the infections and wiping off the layers of dried blood, all the while touching him as softly and carefully as if he was still inside the vessel.

There were some symbols on Cas’ back that seemed to have been painted in his own blood, which had dried and were now so dark they were almost black. Dean made sure he was extra careful when he cleaned them off.

“He’ll come back, right?” Dean asked, wringing out the washcloth, coloring the water red. He tried to sound casual about it, but the look on Sam’s face told him he hadn’t succeeded.

Sam’s gaze dropped back to his hands as he returned to stitching up a particularly nasty wound. “Yeah. I mean, where would he even go?”

“Exactly!” Dean said emphatically, pointing at him with his washcloth and dripping a few drops on Cas’ vessel in the process. “He doesn’t even have anywhere to go!”

“Just… They messed him up pretty bad,” Sam said. “Give him a while.”

If his vessel started to decay, however, he might not have a ‘while.’ Dean decided not to voice that thought out loud.

***

Once they had cleaned and dressed his wounds to the best of their abilities, they sat vigil with the empty vessel for a while, waiting for Cas to return. When day had turned into night, Sam excused himself, advising Dean to get some sleep, too, since they hadn’t gotten enough during the last few weeks.

Dean, of course, could not even think about leaving Cas here to go to sleep. He had ‘given Cas a while,’ as Sam had suggested. Now it was high time to bring out the big guns.

“Castiel,” he prayed, as he closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the ceiling. “Your vessel is almost as good as new.” That was a lie, of course, it would still need a while to heal, but it couldn’t do that until Cas got his feathery angel butt back into it. “It took us half the day to clean and stitch up, so you better appreciate our efforts.”

Dean opened his eyes to look over to the bed, but Cas’ vessel was still lying there, motionless, terrifyingly pale and not breathing.

Balling his hands into fists, Dean took a deep breath, and then started again, “Look. Whatever made you flee… no judgment here.—Hell, I would probably leave this body behind from time to time, too, if I could. But I need you to come back now.”

Still nothing.

“So what? You’re just _never_ coming back, is that it? ’cause I can tell you—your vessel ain’t gonna be habitable for much longer. And Sam and me—we can’t see your true form.”

Dean rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath. He hated that he knew just which buttons to push and even more that he was about to push them, but he was running out of options fast, so he said, “So—you really wanna take a new vessel if you ever want to talk to us again? After all you did to Jimmy?”

If you could count on one thing, it was Cas’ guilt, and Dean wasn’t beyond using that if it got him Cas back.

Dean was still looking up towards the ceiling when he heard a deep inhale behind him. He spun around and sure enough, the guilt strategy had worked—well, that and the fact that Cas apparently hadn’t planned on walking out on them _forever._ Cas’ eyes fluttered open.

Dean sagged in relief and hurried to his side, laying a hand on his shoulder, which made Cas immediately tense up. Dean released his shoulder and took an awkward step back.

“You lied,” Cas rasped. “It is not ‘as good as new.’”

“Yeah, well, it will be.” He smiled at Cas and got a tentative smile back before Cas coughed, grasping at his side.

“This is unpleasant,” he informed Dean.

“That why you just up and left?” Cas glanced at him wearily before looking away again, remaining silent. “We were worried, man.”

“My apologies,” Cas mumbled. “I just… I can’t heal myself. They used… weapons that can hurt angels. I can’t heal those wounds.”

“That’s what we’re here for. You just lay back and rest—let us heal _you_ for once.”

Cas’ eyes had slipped closed, but he opened them again to look at Dean as he said, “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t believe that’s something you are capable of.”

Dean snorted, a bit affronted, but he tried to cover it with sarcasm. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’ll have you know I’m actually quite good at taking care of injuries. Before you came along, I had to patch Sammy and myself up all the time.”

Cas was still looking at him as if he knew something Dean didn’t, but after a moment he simply nodded. Dean had the sense he was being humored.

Since Cas remained silent, Dean felt he had to get his point across to make sure that the angel wouldn’t just vanish again, so he continued, “Next time you can’t stand being inside your own body any longer—don’t just _leave_ , okay? Not like that at least. You have a perfectly fine vessel in working order right here.” He motioned up and down his own body.

“Dean—that’s not… I couldn’t possibly…”

“Standing invitation is all I’m sayin’,” Dean interrupted Cas’ flustered babbling since he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “Obviously not to hang around indefinitely, but if you need a time-out—why the hell not?”

“I… don’t know what to say. That is incredibly generous of you.”

“Nah, you don’t have to say anything.” Dean waved him off. “Just get some shut-eye.”

“I—” Cas started, but Dean wasn’t in the mood to listen to him state that he didn’t sleep.

“I know you guys sleep when you have to replenish your grace, so… Replenish away.” And when Cas still seemed uncertain, he added, “I’ll watch over you.”

That seemed to do the trick. Cas let himself sink deeper into the pillows and closed his eyes. If the soft snoring was anything to go by, he fell asleep almost instantly.

***

Castiel woke to the sound of voices drifting through the half-open door.

He still wasn’t accustomed to the sensation of waking up—or of sleeping—even though he had done it quite a few times over the years he had spent inside Jimmy’s vessel. Of course, he had also lived millions of years without ever falling asleep—an experience he could have lived without for another few million years if anyone had asked him.

“Why did they even take Cas in the first place?” Sam was asking, his voice hushed.

“’Cause they were sadistic bastards, that’s why,” Dean replied. He sounded angry. “I’m more interested in knowing why he isn’t healing quicker.”

Castiel knew the answer to that, of course. Should he speak up? Make them aware of the fact that he could hear them?

“Doesn’t he look pale to you?” Dean continued. “Shouldn’t he look better by now? And he’s slept through most of the day. That can’t be normal.”

“Maybe give him a bit more than _one_ _day_ to heal,” Castiel heard Sam’s voice again, patient as ever in the face of Dean’s rage. “Those weren’t normal wounds, but inflicted with an angel blade.”

A long sigh. “I’m telling you, if my hair turns grey because of that angel… he can be the one to heal me,” Dean grumbled.

“I don’t think grey hair is something that can be _healed_.”

Castiel had no idea what they were talking about anymore. Humans went grey when they grew old. How was Castiel responsible for Dean getting older?

“Yeah, well, anyway. I changed the bandages when he was out cold and the wounds seem to be healing fine, so how come he’s still pale like a corpse?”

This seemed like a good moment to join the conversation. Castiel sat up in the bed, wincing at the pain shooting through his wings, and how his muscles protested the movement, and looked towards the half-open door where he could just make out Sam’s back.

“It’s my wings,” Castiel said and was surprised by how raspy his voice sounded. It took Dean and Sam less time to join him in his room than it did Castiel to clear his throat.

“Cas!” Sam said, smiling brightly. “So good to see you, man. Awake, I mean.” He reached out to touch Castiel’s arm, and Castiel flinched away violently.

Sam immediately pulled his hand back, looking hurt, and Castiel averted his eyes, mumbling, “Sorry.”

He hadn’t meant to flinch away. It was as though his vessel had done that all by itself, an automatic reaction, which made Castiel uncomfortable. Usually, he had complete control over his vessel. It wasn’t supposed to do anything he didn’t approve of.

“Hey,” Dean said, taking a step closer as if to reach out himself, but then he simply held up his hands to show that he had no such intention, and continued, “So… wings?”

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed. “They used the angel blade on my wings. That is what is keeping my grace from healing my vessel.” When Castiel saw Dean exchange a worried glance with Sam, he added, “It will get better with time, I presume.”

“You _presume_?” Dean repeated.

“How could they damage your wings?” Sam asked, ignoring his brother. “Can they even touch them? I mean…” He took a step closer and waved his hand back and forth behind Castiel’s back, probably to check that there was still nothing to touch for humans.

“They used sigils that manifest my wings,” Castiel explained, even though that should have been self-evident.

***

When Dean heard that comment, he looked up so fast he cricked his neck.

“There are sigils that can manifest your wings?” he asked. Why was this the first time he heard of that? That sounded _awesome_.

Cas apparently didn’t think so. “No, Dean, I will not show you the sigil,” he said sternly, glowering at Dean in an attempt to intimidate him, which obviously failed because it had been ages since he had last been afraid of Cas. Now, afraid _for_ Cas—that was a different matter entirely, so there was no way Dean would back off that quickly.

“What do you mean, ‘no’? You just said you can’t get your mojo back until your wings heal, and we can only heal the wounds we can see, what with us being human and all. So fess up and tell us about the sigils.” He assumed a stern expression himself, which didn’t seem to impress Cas either. Yeah, they definitely knew each other too well if they couldn’t even successfully intimidate each other anymore.

“I said no, Dean!” Cas snapped, angry at last. Dean was almost glad to hear him lash out. Of course, Cas couldn’t lash out against the shifters anymore since Dean and Sam had taken care of them, so Dean was okay with Cas focusing his anger on him if it made him feel better.

That wouldn’t keep him from trying to convince Cas that he was dead wrong, though. “Well, have fun with the wing pain, then.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care.

He looked over at Sam, trying to signal that it was time for them to leave, let Cas stew for a bit before he’d come to the inevitable conclusion that Dean had been right all along.

Sam, however, didn’t seem on board with his tactic because he ignored Dean’s look and addressed Cas instead in a soft voice, “Look, we’re only trying to help. Obviously, we wouldn’t hurt your wings, we’d try to tend to the wounds so that you can heal faster.”

Big duh. That’s exactly what Dean had said.

“I can’t tell you,” Cas reiterated. “It’s a well-hidden secret…”

“A well-hidden secret that two douchebags of shifters apparently knew about,” Dean grumbled.

Cas was silent for a moment. Finally, he said haltingly, “Having their wings manifested on this plane makes angels very… vulnerable.”

 _That’s_ what this was about?

“So? Who cares?” Dean asked, his tone maybe a bit harsh, but what did Cas think—that they’d take advantage of that knowledge? “You don’t have to be all strong and powerful. There’s no bad guys here. Just us.—So, be vulnerable all you want. Knock yourself out. Sam and I don’t care. Right, Sam?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” Cas said. “But it is not necessary. My wings will heal in time.”

“You presume,” Dean repeated what Cas had said earlier. He shook his head. How were they stuck with the most stubborn angel?

This time when he gave Sam the sign to leave Cas be so that he could ‘replenish his grace’ some more, Sam obliged and followed him outside.


	3. Chapter 3

“Should we really be doing this without his permission?” Sam asked when Dean had dragged him to the library in order to research ways to manifest an angel’s wings.

“Yes.” Dean paced in a slow lap around the room, scanning the labels on the shelf as he went. “I’m not gonna let him suffer because he is too self-conscious to show us his wings.”

“That’s not what he said,” Sam pointed out.

“Or too proud to show vulnerabilities or whatever,” Dean amended. “Point is, his reasons suck. Plus, he’s healed us countless times. About time we returned the favor. Now…”

He looked around the library, not the slightest clue where he might find information about angel wings. He turned to Sam, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

“You’re the nerd—I mean, book expert. Where do we start?”

Sam swept his gaze slowly around the library without answering, shifting his weight between his feet. Dean immediately narrowed his eyes. He knew his brother. Something was up.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“What? Nothing. Shut up.—Maybe start over there? I’ve seen a few books that focus on angel lore over there.”

“Oo-kay.” Dean would usually bug Sam some more to see if he couldn’t figure out what his problem was, but he had more important things to take care of than his brother PMSing, so he went to the bookshelf Sam had indicated.

“Hey, can you call the vet?” he called over his shoulder. “Ask about how to treat injured wings? We should be ready for when we find the sigils.”

“Yes, sure,” Sam mumbled, though he didn’t sound all too stoked by the prospect.

Still, he took out his cell phone and looked up the number of the vet.

While Dean was reading through some book titles, trying to choose the one most likely to contain information about how to manifest wings, he overheard bits and pieces of Sam’s conversation with the vet.

“Cas—our parakeet—has injured his wings.”

Dean grinned as he pulled out a book on wing anatomy. Sam better not let Cas hear that he had turned him into a parakeet for the sake of his story. (Dean would so tell on him later.)

Dean thumbed through the book quickly, not wanting to waste time. He quickly determined that it contained nothing about the kind of sigils he was interested in. As he put the book back where he had found it, something Sam said on the phone caught his attention.

“…something like a knife wound.”

Dean shot him a meaningful look and mouthed the word ‘dumbass.’ The vet on the other line had probably already expressed concerns of their own because Sam quickly backpedaled, “No, no, no. Not _a_ knife wound, _something like_ … An open wound. It’s just an open wound.”

Smooth. Dean shook his head and gathered an armload of books that looked promising before he sauntered over to the table, where it would be easier to shamelessly eavesdropping on Sam’s phone call.

“I don’t know, he hasn’t let me check yet.—No, he… doesn’t really like strangers and we don’t want to move him.—Okay, great, I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

Sam hung up with a sigh, his expression making it clear that the phone call had not been a pleasant one.

“So?” Dean asked. “Do I have to worry that PETA’s gonna be on our asses now?”

“ _You’re_ going to pick up the ointment she suggested,” Sam said, shooting him one of his finest bitchfaces. “You’re the one who wants to ignore Cas’ wishes.”

“So what—you’d just let our parakeet die?”

“No one said anything about…” Sam started, but he was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.

“You have a parakeet?”

Cas was barely holding himself up by the doorframe, and Dean quickly put the book in his hands back so that he could rush to him.

“Cas. What the hell are you doing out of bed?” he admonished.

He had almost reached out to steady him, but then he remembered how Cas had flinched away from Sam earlier, and held back.

“I was looking for you,” Cas explained his asinine idea to be on his feet when there were still deep gashes all over his vessel. He was probably ruining all the hard work Dean and Sam had put into stitching his vessel back together.

“Are you researching a new case?” Cas asked, eying the book Dean had left on the table.

Dean shot a look at his brother, but Sam was being particularly unhelpful, just standing there and letting Dean cover for their activities.

“Something like that,” Dean muttered. “Come on, you shouldn’t be on your feet.”

To Dean’s surprise, Cas didn’t put up a fuss.—He had to be more out of it than previously thought. More than that, he took a step towards Dean and leaned heavily against him so that Dean had no other choice but to wrap an arm around him in order to support him. No flinching away from touch if you didn’t startle him, it appeared.

Dean and Sam walked the angel back to his room where they helped him back into bed.

“Need me to change the bandages?” Dean asked, but Cas was already out like a light, too exhausted from his trip to the library.

They checked on the bandages anyway and since it was already pretty late, went their separate ways to go to bed themselves. Instead of going to his own room, however, Dean was walking straight back to the library. Something was keeping Cas from healing properly, that much was clear, so Dean would do everything in his power to heal his wings.

He searched through all the books on the shelf Sam had indicated and even managed to get started in on a couple of other shelves. Finally, he found a section about sigils and read until the words began to blur and his eyes slipped closed.

***

“Dean!” Someone was shaking his shoulder and Dean jerked away from a bad dream—one he’d had quite a lot lately, in which they were too late in saving Cas, and left with nothing but a body to burn.

“Huh?” Dean managed to grunt out, as he scrubbed at his face with his hands in an attempt to wake up further.

His neck was stiff and he realized with some surprise that he had fallen asleep on the book he had been reading yesterday.

“Have you been here the whole night?” Sam asked and there was some guilt mixed in with his worry.

Good. Sam _should_ feel guilty about letting Dean do all the research. Dean didn’t even like research—that was nerd stuff.

“Yeah—I think I found something here that could be useful…” He looked back at the page where he had left off the day before and there it was: a sigil that was supposed to show things hidden to the human eye.

He pushed the book towards Sam, who glanced at the symbol and shook his head.

“That doesn’t look like the right one,” he said.

“Yeah, okay, grumpy. It’s still the best we’ve got. So—let’s get the ointment thingy from the vet and then we’re trying this.”

Dean got up and smoothed down his wrinkled shirt, trying to decide if he gave enough of a damn to change into something cleaner.

“No, Dean—I mean, it doesn’t look like the right one because…” Sam hesitated, but then he took out his cell phone and swiped a few times until he found what he was looking for.

Then he held the cell phone out for Dean to see…

“Is that Cas’ back? Those are the strange markings that were on his back!—Wait, you took a _photo_ of them?—Hang on, you left me to read through a huge stack of books all night long even though you knew the right sigils all along?!” He motioned to the books scattered across the table.

“In my defense, I thought you were going to bed last night,” Sam said as he put his phone back into his jeans pocket.

“When have you ever known me to go to bed?”

“Uhm… at night?”

“Ha, ha. I meant when Cas is in danger.” The thought suddenly brought him back to the real matter at hand. “Why the hell haven’t you told me that you have a photo of the sigils? We could have had Cas healed by now.”

“I just don’t think that forcing him to manifest his wings is the way to go here,” Sam explained. “The shifters forced that on him. Shouldn’t we be better than that?”

Dean hated when his little brother was so calm and reasonable while they were arguing.

“Sometimes he’s too stubborn for his own good.—Hey, maybe he’s still asleep and we can fix up his wings before he even knows what hit him?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes, because _that’s_ going to work and not at all be an invasion of his privacy.”

***

Castiel woke up alone once more. He thought back to the night before. When he had woken up, he had done it with a start, his vessel’s heart racing and Dean and Sam nowhere in sight. An irrational part of him had thought that the Winchesters had left him.

His dream had ached of loneliness, like the Empty. He had vaguely recalled Sam and Dean’s faces—but not their own. The shifters’.

He’d had a nightmare. That’s what that had been. Although he had no idea why his father had invented such things. To torture poor human souls and angels low on grace, it seemed.

He had stumbled out of bed and willed his feet to carry him, one step at a time, until he had found the Winchester brothers. They had been in the library talking about this parakeet he had yet to meet.

Castiel loved parakeets. They were gentle creatures and their feathers were very colorful. Why would Dean and Sam keep it hidden from him? Maybe they did not trust him with their parakeet. He should tell them that he would never hurt an animal. He should also tell them that the parakeet probably didn’t feel great cooped up inside the bunker all day. It had to be able to stretch its wings.

Castiel grimaced and rolled to his other side, seeking any relief from the throbbing pain in his wings. They were still very sore since all of his attempts to tend to the wounds had fallen short when he hadn’t been able to reach them properly. He would have to wait for his grace to get stronger so that he could simply use that to heal his wings.

He must have dozed off at some point because the next time he woke up, it was a much smoother transition from sleep to wakefulness.

Someone was softly touching his back, the touch so careful that it didn’t even hurt, but actually felt nice. The bond he shared with Dean instantly told Castiel that it was him sitting on the bed.

Dean sighed and then Castiel heard a strange sound he couldn’t quite place and Dean shifted a bit on the mattress. The warmth of the hand on his back was seeping through the shirt, a comfortable presence on Castiel’s vessel.

And even though the wounds on his wings were still painful, Castiel felt snug like a… hug in a mug—or however that human saying went.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean’s cell phone was lying on the nightstand next to him, showing the picture with the sigils Dean had sent himself from Sam’s cell without his brother’s knowing, shortly before he had won rock, paper, scissors against him and sent him to retrieve the ointment from the vet.

With a heavy sigh, Dean admitted to himself that he couldn’t really go through with it—even though it was obviously the right thing to do, it was still the wrong way to do it. Damn Sammy and his big mouth.

He quickly swiped the picture away before he pocketed his cell phone. Then he let go of the unconscious angel and got up from the bed. He’d only made it a step or two away before Cas woke up.

“Dean?” he asked, rolling over and blinking up at Dean with bleary eyes. “Your hand is warm.”

So, he hadn’t _just_ woken up. “Uhm… thank you?” Dean said, wondering what Cas would think if he knew what Dean’s plan had been.

Deciding to play with open cards, Dean said, “Look—you gotta let us heal your wings, man. If not for you, then for us. How would you feel if Sam or I wouldn’t allow you to heal us when we were injured?”

“I…” Cas started, but trailed off and dropped his eyes back to the bed, which was answer enough for Dean.

“We know what to do—we know the sigils, so you wouldn’t even… betray a secret or whatever.—All you gotta do is trust us.”

Dean waited for Cas’ eyes to find his again to show him how important this was to him. And then, to his surprise—

“Yes.”

“What, really? I mean, great! That’s… great.” Dean took a step back towards the bed and hesitated, his hands working anxiously with the sudden need to do something, but he didn’t know what. “So, do I just, like… use a pen, or…”

Cas shot him a look that said, _You said you knew how this works,_ but he clarified nevertheless, “The sigils have to be painted in fresh angel blood…”

Of _course_ they did!

“…or holy oil.”

“Holy oil, we’ll definitely use the holy oil.—Uhm… I’m gonna.” Dean made a vague gesture towards the door, indicating that he’d go get the oil and then he hurried out of the room before Cas could change his mind.

Now that he had the go-ahead, he felt slightly nervous at the prospect of actually getting to see Cas’ wings. And not just their shadows, either, but the real deal.

On his way back from the storage room, he ran into Sam who must have broken a few traffic laws to get back so quickly.

Before Dean could comment on that fact, Sam had already spotted what Dean was carrying. His face immediately fell into a disapproving frown.

“What’s with the holy oil?” He didn’t even bother hiding the accusation in his tone.

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but Sam spoke over him, “You want to _trap_ him now, in case he puts up a fuss?”

Dean suppressed a grin at the way Sam went into protective mode. Way to go, Sammy, looking out for their angel. Completely unnecessarily, of course, but it was the thought that counted.

“Actually…” He quickly filled Sam in on the new development and they returned to Cas’ room together.

Painting strange symbols onto Cas’ still-healing back with holy oil had to be one of the stranger things Dean had done in a while. Sam was holding the cell phone up for Dean to see and was giving needless instructions— “The circle isn’t fully closed.” or “Make sure to add another line next to this one.”—while Dean was doing all the hard work.

Just as he copied the last line onto Cas’ back, he was suddenly knocked back onto the floor as two huge black wings manifested out of nowhere, sprouting out of Cas’ back.

“A little warning next time?” Dean grumbled, spitting out a mouthful of feathers as he used the wall to help him back to his feet.

Sam was staring at the wings and Dean followed his eyes and winced when he saw dried blood mixed in with broken feathers, clearly visible in the bald patches.

When no one said anything for an uncomfortable amount of time, Cas looked over his shoulder at them and self-consciously folded his wings closer to his body.

“They look hideous,” he acknowledged, not meeting their eyes. “You’re catching me on a ‘bad wing day.’”

Sam was the first to recover, and he cleared his throat loudly. “Well, that’s what we’re here for. I got this ointment…” He showed it to Cas and then threw it to Dean, who hadn’t been prepared to play catch and promptly let it drop. “It’s supposed to help with… well… wings.”

“Bird wings,” Dean supplied as he picked up the ointment.

Cas narrowed his eyes. Even Sam looked at him with disbelief. Yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned that.

“Do you use that on your secret pet parakeet?” Cas asked and Dean almost choked on his own spit.

“Secret— _what_?” he got out.

“We don’t have a parakeet,” Sam explained.

Cas’ tilted his head in a very parakeet-y way and Dean almost burst out laughing.

“I know about the parakeet,” Cas stated.

Fortunately, Dean could hold back his laughter in order to clarify, “ _You_ ’re the parakeet.”

In addition to the head tilt, Cas was now frowning. “I am not a parakeet.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You don’t say.”

He opened the tube and squirted some of the ointment onto his fingers before he threw it back to Sam.

“Angel feathers are completely different…” Cas began to protest, but he broke off when Dean just went for it, massaging the ointment into a bald patch on the right wing. Cas immediately went completely pliant and let out a soft, relieved moan.

“You were saying?” Dean asked, a smug smile tugging at his lips.

“I am not a bird,” Cas reiterated, voice drowsy. “But you may continue.”

***

Castiel was surprised when Sam showed him the ointment for their parakeet and even more so when it turned out that there was no parakeet at all. The Winchesters were mistaken when they compared his wings to a parakeet’s, of course, but any indignation he felt about the inaccurate comparison evaporated the second Dean rubbed the cool ointment into his sore wing.

It brought an instant relief and Castiel wondered if maybe magic was somehow involved. He didn’t care enough to ask, though.

Sam had started in on his left wing and between the two Winchester brothers he felt surprisingly cozy and taken care of. No one would have to know that he’d let two humans groom his wings.

With every wound that was treated, Castiel felt better. For the first time since his capture, his grace felt as if it was there—somewhere inside of him. It was dull and greatly diminished, but Castiel was getting stronger with every healing touch.

Dean was moving on from the bald patches to the parts where the feathers were thicker and suddenly, his fingers stilled.

“What the hell is that?” Dean asked, and Castiel folded in his wings so that he could turn around to see what aberration Dean had found. It wasn’t a mutilated feather, as he had expected, though.

Sam had stopped treating his wing, too, when Castiel had moved out of his reach, and leaned over to take a closer look at the small gadget in Dean’s hand.

“Some kind of tracking device,” he mumbled as he took it from Dean to roll it around in his hands.

“Why would they plant a tracker in his wings? They didn’t plan to let him go.—Did they?”

Dean stared at Castiel, waiting for some sort of explanation.

Castiel was still staring at the tracker in Sam’s hand. He tried to remember the shifters planting it in his wings, but no such memory appeared. He had been in that dungeon for weeks (or so Sam and Dean had told him), but he couldn’t remember _any_ thing specific about that time, except for Sam and Dean’s faces. When he tried to search for any other memory, he just found a slurry of darkness and pain.

“Hey, hey. Calm down,” Dean yelped, and Castiel realized that his wings had flapped wide open behind him in a defensive posture. “What’s with the wing display?”

“I don’t remember,” Castiel told them as he forced his wings to relax.

***

It was pretty obvious that Cas was freaking out badly. The guy had been tortured one too many times. It made sense that a coping mechanism had finally kicked in. Dean, for his part, was almost a little happy that Cas couldn’t remember what exactly had happened to him. Even though not knowing what the bad guys had been up to was never good. These bad guys were dead, though.

Although if Cas didn’t remember…

“Where’s the data sent to?” Sam asked, who seemed to have thought along similar lines.

No one had an answer to that question. Dean looked back and forth between Sam and Cas.

“So what—someone out there might have our location?” he finally summed up what they were probably all thinking.

“I can’t remember,” Cas repeated, stuck on that fact.

“Shame that we don’t have another angel at hand who could do the mind reading thing, huh?” Dean joked, even though they really _could_ use one.

“Well, we do still have the machine that lets you get inside people’s minds,” Sam pointed out, which was the perfect plan of action.

Dean was disappointed when, once the holy oil dried on Cas’ back, his wings vanished along with it. But he had bigger things to worry about. Treating the wounds on his wings had done Cas a world of good and he didn’t wobble nearly as much when they walked him to a chair and hooked him up to the machine.

There was a joke in there somewhere about how often they were in each other’s minds, but Cas looked uncomfortable enough as was, and so Dean let it pass and instead checked with Sam if everything was ready, since Sam was the one to monitor them.

As soon as Dean was inside Cas’ head, he was assaulted by sounds and images. They flew by him so fast that it was almost impossible to grab onto one memory, much less search for a specific one.

Cas’ advice had been to search for emotions rather than a certain event as they were easier to pin down. Being assaulted by a myriad of different emotions made that difficult, though.

Finally, he took hold of a memory interlaced with strong emotions.

The memory swallowed him up and resolved into a scene around him. They were in the bunker: Cas, Dean and Sam. Dean and Sam looked a few years younger. It took Dean a moment, but when his younger self flung open a bedroom door and stepped back to proudly show it to Cas, he remembered.

“Just thought you might want your own room to stay in,” his younger self explained eloquently, carelessly shrugging a shoulder as if to add, “No biggie.”

Cas’ low “Thank you” didn’t nearly express how much he had appreciated the offer if the wave of gratitude Dean felt vibrating off of the memory was anything to go by.

Feeling as if he was intruding (even though he had been present for the memory), Dean tried to move on to other memories. Where would a trauma hide itself in Cas’ mind? He was supposed to look for ‘anguish’ that was due to an angel’s wings being hurt.

“Do I detect a note of forgiveness?” Cas asked in another memory, a shy smile painted across his face.

Dean had never known how happy Cas had been when he had forgiven him for his betrayal. He had never known that _that_ had been the moment Cas’ mind had started to repair itself. Of course, he had always wondered how Cas had been able to come back from that. Why he had suddenly been okay again when Dean had found him in Purgatory again. It was humbling to find out that _he_ had been the missing piece—that it had been him who had jump-started the healing process.

He had to search for more recent memories. The moment he thought that, a fresh memory jumped out at him. Too fresh, as it turned out.

Dean and Sam were carefully massaging Cas’ wings and Cas was feeling so comfortable and cared for, basking in their touches.

And to think he had been reluctant to let them take care of his wings at first… Dean smiled to himself, deciding that now that he knew the sigil, he’d definitely have to take care of Cas’ wings more often.

But this wasn’t why he was here. Where were the dark, torturous memories? As if in answer to his thoughts, a big dark gate appeared in the wall of this memory, and when Dean managed to push it open, a series of darker memories flashed by him in quick succession. Demon Dean almost killing Cas, Cas losing his wings, Dean telling him that he couldn’t stay at the bunker, Cas alone in the bunker and worried out of his mind, Dean plunging the angel blade into Cas’ wing… Wait, Dean plunging the angel blade into Cas’ wing?

It took a great deal of concentration to get back to that memory. It almost seemed like the memory tried to evade him as if it didn’t want him to find it.

Cas was screaming in agony and Dean was poised and ready to jump in and save him before he remembered that it was just a memory. God, he wished he could kill that son of a bitch all over again that dared wear his face.

“Humans, friends with an angel?” The shifter said and huffed out a humorless laugh. “Hunters, at that? Get real!”

“They’re not going to come for you,” shifter Sam joined in the taunting and stepped forward, flicking a syringe with clear liquid, which he then injected into the wound his shifter pal had cut with the angel blade.

If they had drugged Cas, that explained why he had such a hard time remembering. Dean flexed his fingers and fought the urge to clock the memory shifters yet again.

“Dean,” Cas murmured almost as if in prayer and then he started mumbling something Dean couldn’t make out. It took a moment for Dean to figure out that it actually _was_ a prayer—a prayer doomed to forever remain unanswered because, of course, there had been no way for Dean to receive it. When Cas began begging for Dean to come for him, Dean’s heart was ripped to pieces.

 _Just a memory. Cas is safe and sound with us at home,_ Dean had to tell himself over and over again.

“Where’s Heaven, angel-boy?” shifter Dean asked, but Cas, drugged out of his mind, didn’t react one way or another.

Suddenly, a bearded man walked in, right up to Cas, and patted his wing, ignoring the way Cas tried to flinch away from him, but couldn’t because the chains were holding him in place.

“Out,” he simply told the shifters, who didn’t question the order, vanishing silently out the door.

“My sweet little angel,” the unknown man said, patting Cas’ shoulder now. “You’re doing so well.”

Dean did a double take when the man took the tracker out of his pocket and planted it in Cas’ right wing, making Cas scream.

“I don’t remember him.” Dean spun around to find Cas, the real Cas, he thought, watching from over his shoulder.

“Yeah, the memory was hidden pretty well,” Dean said, while trying to block Cas’ view of what was happening behind him. “What are you doing here?” Dean asked in an attempt to distract him from hearing Cas’ own screams behind him.

“This is my mind,” Cas reminded him deadpan.

“Yes, it is.—I wasn’t snooping.” Dean felt the need to defend himself.

Cas simply frowned at him. “Of course you were. This is what you came here for.”

Behind them, the man from the memory told Cas, “You will help me yet, my sweet little angel.”

Cas was watching the scene, his face expressionless.

“Yeah, well, looks like I got what I came here for,” Dean exclaimed with a clap of his hands. “Let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel had searched for Dean inside his own mind immediately, in order to make sure to keep him away from more… private memories. Even though Dean knew about everything he had done, there was no need for him to see Castiel murder hundreds of his own kind, for instance.

An intrusion should have been easy to feel and follow, but with Dean, a different consciousness inside his mind hadn’t even registered as an ‘intrusion’ for some reason.

That was why it had taken him a while to find Dean, and Castiel had no way of knowing what other memories he might have seen. Dean didn’t seem fazed, though, so Castiel suspected that he hadn’t seen anything too embarrassing.

“Who was that?” Dean asked as soon as they had left his mind and brought Sam up to date. “Strike that, _what_ was that? Shifter? Demon?”

“He was not a demon and not a monster,” Castiel said.

“Agree to disagree,” Dean mumbled, but Castiel went on, “He seemed almost… like an angel. But he didn’t have any wings and I didn’t recognize him.”

“Better question,” Sam weighed in, “Why hasn’t he shown up here yet? The tracker must have transmitted the entire time.”

“No idea.” Dean shrugged his shoulders. “We better strike first, though.”

“Strike?” Castiel asked, confused.

“Yeah. Go get the son of a bitch and gank him before he decides to get you back.”

Somehow, the idea to kill the man from his memory did not feel right to Castiel. When he had watched the scene Dean had discovered inside his mind, other memories had come back and Castiel remembered that the man had never once used the angel blade on him. At first, Castiel had not wanted him to touch his wings, but after a while, it had almost felt good. After all, it had been the only contact he had had in weeks that hadn’t hurt.

“I don’t think he had bad intentions,” Castiel settled on saying in an attempt to get Dean to let it go.

“What?” Dean and Sam asked simultaneously, both looking at him with wide eyes as if he had said something crazy.

“He tortured you, Cas,” Dean pointed out.

_My sweet little angel…_

The shoulder pat had almost felt nice. It had not hurt, in any case.

“Is this some kind of fucked-up case of Angel Stockholm Syndrome?” Dean sounded angry.

“I think it’s just called ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ for angels, too,” Sam corrected him.

Dean rolled his eyes at him. “Way to miss the point.”

“I simply do not think that he deserves to die is all,” Castiel tried to reason with them, ignoring their banter as he did most of the time.

“Stockholm Syndrome it is,” Dean mumbled, throwing his hands up in their air in an aggravated gesture.

“He touched my wings,” Castiel pointed out.

Humans probably didn’t understand that that formed a certain kind of bond. But the argument didn’t seem to convince Dean.

He corrected, forcefully, “He _hurt_ your wings. Sam and I— _we_ ‘touched your wings.’ So, if you want to be unhealthily hung up on someone, be hung up on us.”

“He doesn’t mean…” Sam began and broke off. Then he tried again, “Don’t be ‘hung up’ on us, either.”

“Yeah, of course not,” Dean agreed. “But _definitely_ don’t be hung up on your torturer slash angelnapper.”

“I think it’s just called…”

“So help me, Sammy!”

It was Castiel’s turn to roll his eyes. ‘Way to miss the point,’ indeed. They did not seem to understand that it was the shifters who had been the enemy, not the man whose name was still evading him.

***

For some reason Cas tried to convince them to let go of the plan to find the mystery man/monster—unsuccessfully, of course, because there was no way Dean was letting this go. He was actually glad that he had someone left he could make pay for what he had done to Cas.

So, they went right over Cas’ protests to discussing how they could find the mystery man.

“He asked about Heaven, right?” Dean said, looking at Cas for confirmation. “You think that’s what he’s after? Track an angel to Heaven and bust through the doors?”

“And do what?” Cas asked. “Get smote by angels who catch him trespassing?”

“You don’t know what kind of army he has,” Dean rebutted, irritated by the fact that Cas was _still_ defending the bad guy.

“Makes sense,” Sam said. “At least it would explain why he hasn’t attacked us here.”

Dean nodded. He had probably thought Cas would go straight to Heaven once he was free, instead of hanging around on Earth.

“We could use the tracker to lure him out,” Sam suggested.

Dean’s head whipped around to stare at his brother. “You haven’t deactivated it yet?!”

Shrugging his shoulders, Sam pointed out, “He already knows the location of the bunker anyway.”

Dean moved his head pensively from side to side. “Fair point,” he acknowledged.

The wing… grooming, for lack of a better word, had seemingly helped jump-start Cas’ grace and he reacted very grumpily when Dean dared suggest he should go lie back down. Apparently, he had had enough sleep during the last couple of days to last him at least a millennium.

In any case, he wouldn’t let Dean and Sam go execute their plan alone. So that’s how the _three_ of them found themselves out in nature, hiding out in bushes with a clear view of the spot where they had dropped the tracking device. They had left the car way too far away for Dean’s liking, but they didn’t want to tip their target off.

A big tree functioned as their ‘gate to Heaven’ and at the same time, the net that was supposed to trap the mystery man was attached to a branch. The second he stepped up to the tracker, the net would entrap him and hang him from the tree. The plan was foolproof.

Apart from the fact that they had been waiting for two hours and the position—crouching behind a bush where bugs seemed to have a lot of fun biting him—wasn’t the most comfortable one. Sitting on top of each other, waiting patiently for something _—any_ thing to happen wasn’t their strong suit.

“Hey—mind healing some bug bites over here?” Dean asked Cas when scratching his arm only made it worse.

Sam shook his head. “You’re _un_ believable.”

“What?” Dean asked grumpily. “Jealous that I asked him first?”

“He’s not some healing machine you can use for every little itch,” Sam explained, just as Cas reached over and touched Dean’s hand. Immediately, he felt invigorated.

Still, he felt the need to defend himself. “It’s not like he has anything better to do, since your plan doesn’t seem to be working out so well.—Thanks, Cas,” he added when the healing part of the touch was over and Cas’ hand was still on top of his.

Cas, of course, didn’t understand that _Thanks_ was code for “I’m all healed up, you can let go now” and let his hand rest right where it was.

So Dean repeated, a bit louder, “Thanks, Cas.”

“Shush,” Sam said.

“ _You_ shush,” Dean retorted automatically.

“You both shush,” Cas said as he finally withdrew his hand. “Why do humans have to be such an impatient species?”

“No, I mean…” Sam said and gestured towards the path leading up to the tree where a car was pulling up.

Finally! For a second Dean feared that it might just be someone who wanted to go for a walk, but when the car parked, it was in fact their mystery man who got out. He looked at his cell phone and then around, probably searching for Cas.

Then he walked over to inspect the tree. He had to be right on top of the tracker. Why wasn’t he hanging upside down from the tree yet?

Give them demons, ghosts or angels any day—devil’s traps, circles of salt and rings of holy fire they could work with. But a normal non-supernatural trap? Apparently, not their strong suit.

There was no way Dean was letting him slip through their fingers. Without thinking about it, he jumped to his feet and charged at the man, dimly aware of Sam cursing under his breath and then following him together with Cas.

The man looked up from his cell phone and let it drop when he saw Dean taking out an angel blade. Cas had mentioned that he almost seemed like an angel and Dean didn’t want to take any chances. He should not have been surprised when the man took out an angel blade of his own.

Dean quickly found out that the man was a skilled fighter, even if Cas was right and he wasn’t a monster. They both lost their angel blades in the fight, but once they were unarmed, Dean managed to tackle him before he went down with him.

“Dean—get out of the way!” he heard Sam yell, who had his gun out and was looking for a shot. Dean really should have gone with the gun to begin with.

Instead, he pushed the man down into the ground, now that he had him at a disadvantage. Struggling against Dean’s grip, the man seemed to realize that he was losing because he turned his head towards Sam and Cas, who were watching from a few steps away.

“My sweet little angel. You came back to me,” he said.

“Like hell he did!” Dean growled and delivered a punch to his face that was so hard he had to shake out his hand.

Cas took a step towards them and Dean supposed that it was only fair that he got to smite his jailer. Reluctantly, he took some of his weight off of him and turned to Cas, silently asking him what he wanted to do.

The man was looking right at Cas as he declared, “I am your brother.”

Cas was staring back at him, head tilted. “You are not an angel.”

“But I was,” the man answered.

“You fell,” Sam said, lowering his gun.

The man shook his head. “My angelic name was Zariel and I did not fall. I was forced out of Heaven. I have been looking for a way back for almost my entire mortal life.” He spat out the ‘mortal’ as if it was a curse. “My own brothers and sisters ruined my life. Having to live like human filth. There is nothing more degrading. I will find them wherever they hide and ruin _their_ lives.”

“Nice sob story,” Dean said, not feeling sorry in the slightest. “Doesn’t give you the right to hold Cas captive.”

He raised his hand, about to strike again, when Cas spoke up. “Dean. Leave him.”

Dean glared at Cas incredulously, but lowered his arm nevertheless. “Would you snap out of your Angel Stockholm Syndrome?”

“He will never find Heaven and will not get his revenge. That is punishment enough.—He is not a monster, he is human,” Cas added.

“Well… he’s an ex-angel…” Dean mumbled. Not exactly one hundred percent human. But he reluctantly let go of Zariel and pushed himself to his feet. While he did not like the idea of letting Zariel roam free, it should be Cas’ decision.

Dean was walking towards Cas when Zariel piped up again. “You are just as bad as all the other angels.”

Turning back around to Zariel, Dean realized in a split second that he had picked up the angel blade, his eyes full of hatred in his desire for revenge. With no time for making decisions, Dean instinctively stepped in front of Cas just as Zariel was about to plunge the angel blade into his chest.

Excruciating pain brought Dean to his knees as he clutched at his shoulder. The sound of a gunshot came to him as if through a thick veil and he knew this was the end as he felt his consciousness leave his body.

***

Castiel saw Dean fall to his knees because he had taken the blade meant for him, and he immediately took a step forward to catch Dean before he hit the ground. There was no time to smite Zariel, but luckily, Sam smote him… _shot_ him.

Castiel quickly pulled the blade out, making Dean groan in pain before his head lolled back, having succumbed to unconsciousness, and Castiel let as much of his grace as he could spare flow into Dean’s body… to no avail.

Maybe Dean was too close to death, maybe Castiel’s own injuries were still not healed enough, but he started to panic when he found himself unable to heal Dean’s wounds. His breathing became shallow, which was not a good sign for humans.

“Cas?” Sam asked, joining them, his voice trembling slightly.

But Castiel did not have any energy to spare in order to reassure the younger Winchester. Dean’s life was slipping through his fingers and there simply was no universe in which Castiel would let Dean die for him.

All the times Dean had been there for him, always ready to sacrifice everything for him…

A fragment of conversation floated into his mind. _You have a perfectly fine vessel in working order right here…_ _Standing invitation is all I’m sayin’._

He had Dean’s ‘yes’! It was a risky move—after all, Dean had been injured by an _angel_ blade, but there had been no angel inside his vessel at the time and so it should be safe for Castiel—or at least he estimated, he had a thirty percent chance of being safe. Twenty at least.

Without wasting any more time, Castiel left his vessel in order to enter Dean’s, letting his grace flow through Dean from the inside. He was vaguely aware of Dean’s soul cohabitating the vessel, shining brighter than ever the more Castiel healed his injured heart tissue.

When there was no trace left of the wound, Castiel let his grace affectionately brush against Dean’s soul before he returned to his own vessel.

Dean’s eyes flew open as he took in a huge breath. He blinked a few times, dumbfounded, touching his own chest where the wound had been a few seconds ago, before looking up and locking eyes with Castiel.

“Uh… thanks,” he mumbled.

Castiel was holding his gaze. “You too.”

“And thanks to the only one who brought a gun to an angel blade fight,” Sam butted in, but his voice was still trembling ever so slightly, which told Castiel that he had been ‘freaking out,’ as Dean would say.

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel said dutifully and accepted Sam’s hand to help him up.

Dean got to his feet as well, glancing at Zariel’s dead vessel, which was lying next to them.

Castiel wondered if Zariel had gone on to the Empty, where all angels went, or if, as a human, his soul had ended up in Heaven or Hell.

He was brought out of his thoughts when Dean laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, which Castiel knew was his way of asking if he was okay, and led him away to the path that was leading up to the tree.

“Uhm… guys?” Sam asked and when they turned back to him simultaneously, he asked, “Are we just leaving the body lying around here?”

***

On their way home, Dean kept glancing at Cas who was sitting in the passenger seat for once because Sam wanted to do something nice for him after all he had been through.

Dean thought he still felt the remnants of the grace that had been left behind when Cas had possessed him. Jimmy had once described the feeling as ‘being chained to a comet,’ which was nowhere near what Dean had experienced.

The pain from the bullet wound along with any other kind of pain had been taken away almost instantly and instead, he had felt at peace. Taken care of. Safe. He had been vaguely aware of Sam freaking out somewhere close by, but the grace flooding through him that had felt oddly familiar had been so reassuring that it had been hard to worry about anything.

Dean wondered if that was what it felt like when your soul was ‘gripped tight’ by an angel. Probably not any angel, but Cas? Yeah, he could see how that might evoke a feeling of comfort and home.

Another glance at Cas revealed the angel staring out the window. Cas hadn’t wanted them to kill Zariel even though the ex-angel had gotten exactly what he deserved if you asked Dean. But was Cas okay with what had transpired?

***

Castiel noticed Dean casting him furtive glances.

Yes, he hadn’t wanted retribution—not least of all because enough angels had died (some of them at his hand), and he hadn’t wanted to add one more to the pool, even though Zariel hadn’t been an angel anymore. But Castiel knew that falling didn’t equal being completely human. There would always be an angel part left.

He was sad that someone could harbor such hatred for their own kind. But when Zariel had stabbed Dean with the angel blade and for a moment, Castiel had thought that he was too late to heal him—Castiel would have smote him anyway, had Sam not been faster.

Of course, Dean was wrong about his assumption that he had Stockholm Syndrome—angels weren’t affected by trauma the way humans were—but Castiel still felt strange about Zariel’s death.

Back home, he retreated to his room to sit on his bed and just let his thoughts wander for a while. He could have been sitting there for hours or days—time made no difference to him—when a knock on the door made him look up.

Dean was peeking through the half-opened door, not having waited for an answer to his knock.

“Hey, you missed dinner,” he said and then entered the room without invitation. There was a worried crease on his forehead.

Ah. It had only been hours. Why was Dean worried, then?

Trying to make a joke in order to make Dean feel better, Castiel repeated a phrase he had heard humans say before, “I was not hungry.”

“Ha, ha. You turned into a comedian now?” Dean asked, but his lips were twitching as if he had to consciously suppress a smile, so Castiel thought his attempt at human humor had gone well.

“So,” Dean said, a forced casualness to his tone, which made Castiel suspect that he wanted to discuss a matter that fell under the ‘chick flick’ category. “How’s the healing going?”

“It’s going well,” Castiel replied. He was still using his grace to heal some of the last wounds, but the rest would heal soon enough.

There was a beat of silence, in which Dean was looking around the room. Castiel recognized it as Dean’s habit for thinking about what to say next. Finally, Dean’s eyes returned to his and he asked, “Need any more help with your wings?”

Castiel didn’t really need help anymore. His wings were well on the way to being back to their old (albeit still battered) condition. Yet, when he thought back to how it had felt when Sam and Dean had treated his wings with care, he was tempted to pretend he still needed some help. Then again, Dean would realize soon enough that the wounds were only superficial at this point if he took another look at the wings.

Apparently, he had taken too long to answer—sometimes the appropriate human reaction time was still evading him—because Dean was talking again.

***

Cas was taking too damn long to answer, and Dean knew he wanted to say yes, anyway. He had felt it when he had been inside Cas’ mind. There was no way he’d still feel uncomfortable about letting Dean touch his wings. The angel was probably only too proud to admit it.

So he spoke up again, admitting, “You know, I thought it was pretty cool, too.”

When Cas was looking at him with an unreadable expression, he quickly added, “Not the part where your wings were all messed up. Just… you know… in general.”

Cas hesitated for a moment longer. Then he said, “There are not many wounds to treat anymore.”

Dean didn’t want to push, but he felt a slight pang of disappointment that apparently Cas was too stubborn to admit that he had enjoyed the experience.

“But I would appreciate the help,” Cas added, shooting him a shy look.

Dean grinned. He didn’t get to see a shy Cas often, but the blush that was spreading across the angel’s face was definitely teasing material.

“Although we do not have an endless supply of holy oil,” Cas pointed out.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean waved his concerns off. And then he added for good measure, “Worth it.”

Even though the comment could be read as ‘Treating the wounds will be worth it,’ or ‘Making sure that the wings are healing properly will be worth it,’ Dean hoped that Cas understood what he had truly meant. ‘ _You’re_ worth it.’

With the way the shy smile returned to his face, Cas seemed to understand just fine.

As well he should. After all, Cas would always be worth _everything_ to Dean.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are highly appreciated. <3


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